Last night we played an early war scenario, at Hastur Hobby in Midvale, Utah. (Using "Triplane". Sorry, no pictures. I thought about it a couple of times but lacked the gumption to dig out my camera.)
Two Eindeckers were defending a German observation balloon. One of the Eindeckers was an E.IV with two machine guns.
Three Morane "H" attackers: one was French with a Hotchkiss, the other two were British with Lewis MGs, all three using deflector plates.
I only do this batrep because it was so funny: the balloon won. Here's how it happened:
Several passes were made on the bag, none of them effective, even though two "critical hits" were scored that gave a chance for the hydrogen to go "BOOF!" The eagerness to get in as many shots as possible caused one Morane to get in too close, and in doing a wingover to come around, it got fouled by a tethering cable. Down it went, catching fire on the way. The fire went out. But on reaching the ground the pilot was killed instantly in the crash.
The other two Moranes made one last pass each at the balloon, in successive turns. Each one broke its machine gun, i.e. a jam that cannot be fixed in the air.
Both Moranes made their escape from the Eindeckers. One Morane had sustained serious damage in the attack from the Eindeckers, but nothing critical was hit.
Altogether it was about as silly as a game can get, took a lengthy amount of time, and exhausted the players in various ways. As one of us had to drive to Las Vegas today, he begged off. We all bailed early.
experiments to find a better way to mount aircraft for wargaming.
